We both paid online via credit card. When my wife withdrew her application, she received in due course a cheque for £24 by way of a refund. I am pretty much sure that I was told at the time that because my application was withdrawn more or less as soon as I made it, our card had not been debited for my £24.
Last month, I finally noticed that the CTC had indeed debited our card for 2 x £24, so I emailed the membership department stating that I had no record of any refund and asking if they would look into the matter. CTC then wanted a "copy of the relevant transactions", which I provided. This resulted in ...
... Thank you for your email and providing a copy of your credit card statement showing the two transactions made payable to CTC. I have now raised a refund request for £24 in respect of your own membership application. Because your online application had failed, the payment was not shown on your membership record.
You should receive your refund within the next 7 – 10 days ...
I guess "within the next 7-10 days" should perhaps have been "within 7-10 working days" and it's early days yet to actually see a cheque, but if anybody reading this is interested, here's a couple of things for the CTC to consider ...
1. Why issue a refund against a card payment by cheque when an electronic refund costs less to do, is simpler from an accounting POV and is what most punters would expect?
2. If the CTC's system is such that an online payment doesn't show on the membership record raised by or linked to the application to which that payment relates, that system is fundamentally flawed.
